Europa Contagion

by Nicholas Thorp

  “At first I thought that he was still nearby but was difficult to see because of how dark it was. The waters were crystal clear and there wasn’t any soot at our depth to block my view, but the flashlight only penetrated so far in the darkness. I knew he had been around with me a moment before, so I thought that perhaps he had decided to ascend faster than I was. I kept ascending at the proper rate and eventually came to the top of the rope and the surface. I still couldn’t see Dave anywhere, so I thought he had climbed back up already.

  “I was about to take off my fins and start my climb back when I thought I felt something hit me. I looked down and there was Dave, floating face down in the water, not moving. I called for help and pulled him out of the water as fast as I could. Dave was seriously injured. His head looked like it had been sliced open by a knife.”

  “How could that be?” Sonya asked.

  “I later asked him what happened,” Navya answered. “He had never done a night dive before in conditions like these. He was much more concerned and worried about the dive and was breathing harder than normal. As we were ascending, he realized that he had run out of air. To be honest I’m surprised it hadn’t happened before. I don’t think I ever saw him check how much air he had in his tank while we were doing dives.

  “Anyway, he said he tried to take a breath and it felt like ‘sucking air out of a balloon that had no more air in it.’ Instead of telling me and using my air as we made our way to the surface, he panicked and swam to the surface as quickly as he could. Since he was ascending faster than he should have in the dark, he ended up hitting his head on an antenna we had placed in the water, which sliced his head open and gave him a concussion.”

  Navya walked over to a counter, grabbed some ibuprofen, and handed it to Kato.

  “There we were on the boat, twenty hours from our home base, and Dave had hit his head hard enough that he might need surgery. I had to make a choice: leave him alone and hope he survived the trip back, or try to stabilize him right there.”

  Everyone’s attention was focused on Navya as she continued her story.

  “He vomited on the floor and that was when I decided I couldn’t just hope that he survived. He had suffered from a TBI and was vomiting without nausea. That’s an indicator that the intracranial pressure in his head could be increasing. If I did nothing, the pressure could have continued to increase and killed him.”

  “TBI?” Sonya asked.

  “Traumatic brain injury. As part of our experiment and trip, we had a few medical supplies with us, believe it or not. One of the things that came in handy was some propofol.” Navya walked over to a counter. “Kato, be sure to take that ibuprofen and rest. You’ll be fine.” Navya pulled herself up on the counter nearby.

  “What did you do?” Felix asked.

  “I did what I thought would save him. I put him in an induced coma.”

  “What!” Sonya said shocked. “On a boat in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Yes, being in an induced coma changes much of how the body operates. It reduces the brain’s oxygen consumption, lowers heart rate, lowers your metabolism, and, most importantly for Dave, helps relieve pressure on the brain. I sat there for twenty hours watching and administering the propofol to keep him under. There were a number of people who criticized me for what I did. But here’s the thing: it worked. He was stabilized long enough for us to get back. I ended up performing some rudimentary surgery on him even though our setup wasn’t ideal back at base. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details of the surgery, but to make a long story short, I had to cut a hole in his head to help properly relieve the pressure and get him more permanently stabilized. He remained stable enough that he was able to be flown back to a hospital that could adequately take care of him. He never came back, but he did survive.”

  Anytime Navya told a story everyone knew that it would be an interesting one. This time was no different. Felix was, as usual, impressed with Navya’s skills. He couldn’t even imagine doing something like cutting a hole in someone’s head.

  “Oh, that’s all? I thought you were going to actually do the surgery right there on the boat!” Alice said.

  Of the other seven crew members, Alice was probably Felix’s least favorite. She always made snide comments that were supposed to be ‘sarcastic and funny,’ and it especially annoyed him when she made her comments about Navya.

  Everyone either nodded at Alice’s comment or ignored it and scattered to go rest in their rooms or continue working.

  As Navya left, she went to the communication room and compiled her reports before sending them to the Seeker. This was something she did daily. However, since the communication satellite had a fourteen-day orbit, the reports could only be sent out once every fourteen days. In a few hours, the satellite would be in the proper position to send and receive data. She told the computer to send the information when the satellite was ready.

  Before heading to her bunk to get some rest herself, Navya stopped at the docking bay. She sat in the command chair, pulled the headphones from their resting place, and put them snuggly around her head. Then she flipped the power switch and listened.

  There wasn’t too much time for extra activities while on the mission, but whenever she had time Navya loved to listen to the sounds of the ocean beneath them. A large microphone had been inserted into the ocean as part of their research. Navya would regularly twist and turn the knobs that would increase or decrease certain frequencies and amplify sounds. She always thought that maybe one day she would hear the sounds of life. The first time she sat and listened she thought she might even hear something like a whale. It was wishful thinking, but it was certainly entertaining to think about.

  She never actually heard anything like a whale. Most of the time it was static-like noises or simply silence. The most interesting thing she ever heard was the sounds of random noises and clicking.

  THREE

  Seeker

  “Yet another small step for a woman, another leap for womankind,” Bailey said sarcastically as she stepped off the ladder and pressed her foot into the ground. She was now the third person to step foot on another celestial body. First, Neil Armstrong on Earth’s Moon. Then, Alice Evans on Europa. Now, Bailey Anderson on Ganymede.

  Dimitri followed and crawled out of the hatch of the Lander and onto the ladder.

  He was careful as he pushed himself off the ladder onto the surface, not wanting to step on the same footprint that Bailey had just made.

  “Nice. Come up with that yourself?” Dimitri asked as he made his way to the footprint. He centered the camera that was on his shoulder mount and steadied himself. Pressing a button on his wristband, he snapped a photo of the footprint.

  “What? Dimitri, you know that people will love reading that in the history books!” Bailey responded.

  “Hey, no fighting you two,” Li said. Li was the last of the current three-man party. Although very tempted to visit the surface of Ganymede, he had decided to stay on board the Seeker. From his vantage point, he could oversee anything and potentially troubleshoot and help the others as needed. He was also the psychiatrist of the group, and usually was the first person that the others would consult in trying to resolve their disputes and problems.

  Li was taking advantage of the extra room on the Seeker to do an inventory of their food supplies. He loved being on board the Seeker. It was the largest spaceship ever constructed, and it had been the home of everyone on the mission for more than a half-decade. The journey had been a long one to Europa, taking five and a half years just to get to Jupiter itself. Over this time, Li had gotten to know and respect the inner workings of almost every aspect of the ship.

  The mission planners back on Earth realized that such a long mission would be difficult on the crew in many ways, including the reality that people will want to pair up and develop romantic relationships. The crew was selected in part because they tested very low on ‘sex drive’ or libido. Further, the crew all understood how problematic a rel
ationship could be. Pregnancy on the voyage, of course, was almost unthinkable and none of the crew was interested in being a parent. As a result, each astronaut had agreed, in writing, to abstain from any fraternization during the mission.

  In addition, the mission planners had an ace up their sleeve that they revealed to the final sixteen applicants, eight primary and eight back-ups, who made the cut: the food for the mission had all been laced with a chemical that would virtually erase their sex drive. It was not surprising to the planners that not one of the sixteen refused the chance at the mission after this fact was revealed.

  Long ago, Li had accepted the reality that their precious food had been tampered with and it didn’t cross his mind as he completed the inventory.

  On the surface of Ganymede, Bailey walked over to the edge of a small clearing and looked out over the barren, icy surface.

  “Li, look at this. You still getting a clear image?” Bailey asked.

  “Yeah, the signal is great. All video is coming in clean,” Li said. He was floating in front of several monitors that showed live feeds of Bailey and Dimitri’s cameras. He maximized Bailey’s video feed and watched the screen in awe.

  “That’s one impressive view,” he said.

  The Surface of Ganymede was somewhat similar to Europa, but it was more mountainous. All of the crew members had only seen the surface of Europa’s daytime through a video feed. Being on the surface of Europa during the day had been deemed too dangerous without proper protection, such as being in the well-protected Habitat or the Nomad. Even with additional shielding on the spacesuits, called POWER modifications, the radiation was considered too dangerous for excursions on Europa’s daytime surface.

  The first surface walk was when they had landed on Europa and quickly made their way to the Habitat during the safest part of its orbit: when Europa was in Jupiter’s magnetotail. During this time it was dark on the surface, but also far more protected from radiation. The second surface walk on Europa had been when Bailey, Li, and Dimitri had left the Habitat for the Lander to go on their journey to Ganymede.

  Being able to walk on Ganymede, especially without POWER modifications, even for their short trip, was like a breath of fresh air for Bailey. Not only did she get to move around more freely rather than be confined to the ship, but she also got to enjoy more gravity than she normally would. Not to mention the view she was seeing right now was something to behold. Jupiter could not be missed in the sky, and the land that had never before been touched by humans stretched out to the horizon. No matter how many times she got to see a view like this she was always amazed.

  The sky above didn’t just contain Jupiter. As she gazed off into the distance, a small shimmering light caught her eye. She focused on it and the shimmering light turned into a solid, small light on the horizon that moved toward her. It grew brighter and got larger the closer it got to her. It was moving quickly, and soon was passing directly overhead. By that time, Bailey could make out the very distinctive feature of the object: two large circular rings of the Seeker.

  Li left the communication room and made his way to the first of the two rotating rings. The rings were without a doubt one of the more striking features of the Seeker. Each one was an astonishing 100 feet in diameter and had a rotating period of fifteen seconds which resulted in a respectable two-thirds gravity of Earth.

  Li grabbed a packet of water and sat down to drink it while keeping an eye on Bailey and Dimitri through his wristband. He didn’t much like being on the rotating rings. He had never gotten used to the slight nausea he felt every time he used them. It was inevitable for some nausea to be felt because of the Coriolis effect.

  He might not have liked the nausea but he couldn’t argue against having gravity either. He remembered how he had to explain artificial gravity to his brother’s twin five-year-old boys. Li wasn’t a big family man. No one on the mission could be. Such was the sacrifice one had to make when embarking on a decade long mission so many billions of miles from Earth. Although Li’s parents had died when he was younger, he had a brother. The twin boys were always a handful.

  “Uncle Li, why aren’t you floating around?” One of the boys had asked when he saw Li in a live communication feed just after departing to Europa. The boys loved Bruce Lee movies and thought their uncle’s name meant they were, somehow, related to Bruce Lee.

  The other boy picked up quickly and joined in, “Hey, yeah, you said you were in space!”

  Li had always admired the curiosity and also naivety that young ones had. It gave him a chance to teach them something he thought was very interesting.

  “It’s like a ball being spun around on a string,” Li had told them. “As it spins, the ball is pulled outward and the string is held up in the air. It’s not magic that’s holding it up, it’s centrifugal force! If you let go of the string, the ball would suddenly fly away. Here on the Seeker, anyone standing on the rings would also fly away, however, the walls of the ring, like the string on the ball, stop anyone from actually being flung outward. In turn, this pulls anything ‘down’ creating a sense of gravity. You can even calculate the force of gravity with a formula using the radius and rotation speed!” Li found that the more he spoke about it, the more technical he got without even considering that the boys at their age might not understand what he was saying, much less understand its significance.

  The health benefits of artificial gravity could not be understated. Part of routine activities for everyone traveling on this mission was regular exercise. Without gravity to continuously work the human body, even for a short period of time, meant that there was major bone density loss, muscle atrophy, and cardiovascular deterioration, among other medical problems.

  To help alleviate this, regular exercise was mandated. In addition, the regular clothing all crew members wore was extra-elastic, meaning each movement they made forced them to fight the elastic. Thus, the crew members were constantly ‘working out’ as they moved around, much like wearing weighted clothing on Earth.

  Each member of the mission had a basic wardrobe depending on the activities of the member. All crew were required to wear special elastic clothing for normal activities. The elastic suit was thought of as the ‘jeans’ and a ‘tee-shirt’ for a regular day on a space mission.

  Following this, if a crew member was going to do any activity with the chance of environmental danger, such as riding in the Nomad or going on a spacewalk, then they had to wear their spacesuits.

  Spacesuits made in decades past, the original EMUs, were large and bulky. The new MK V spacesuits worn by the current crew held the latest in advanced technologies and innovations; they allowed for much greater flexibility and mobility compared to the older models, as well as increased protection from the elements. Radiation was reduced, temperatures were easier to maintain, oxygen was more efficiently regulated, and there was less mass to carry around in general. These suits could also watch vital signs, repair minor tears in itself, and administer basic first aid to the user.

  This wasn’t the end of the crews’ wardrobe, however. If a crewmember was going to be in a dangerous environment where radiation could be a serious issue, like on the surface of Europa, there was one extra layer that was required: POWER modifications. These were designed to attach to the outer layer of the spacesuits. Although bulking up the suits considerably, they reduced the amount of incoming dangerous radiation to tolerable levels, especially if one reduced their total time in such an environment.

  Even with the help of artificial gravity and increased resistance in their clothing, it still wasn’t enough to fully prevent medical problems for a long mission of ten years, such as the one they were on. Thus, a newly developed procedure was created which carefully stimulated specific muscles in the body. The machine used micro-targeted-electricity to force discrete muscle fibers to contract and release, breaking them down and allowing them to build up again. In other words, working the muscles out. A surprising amount of the crews’ shift was focused on making sur
e their bodies didn’t deteriorate over the long mission.

  Unlike Europa, there was no Habitat waiting on Ganymede. The primary goal of the mission was to visit Europa, but there were secondary objectives and goals for the mission as well. Ganymede was even larger than Mercury and was the only moon in the solar system to have a magnetic field. It was also the only moon orbiting Jupiter to be outside of Jupiter’s dangerous radiation belt, making it relatively safe from radiation on the surface with even basic protection.

  The trip to Ganymede was a temporary exploration trip that would take four months to fly there, perform research and then travel back to Europa. This is why, while Li was on board the Seeker as it orbited Ganymede, Bailey and Dimitri took the Lander to step foot on the moon, retrieve samples for research and take measurements. Bailey was especially curious about the geology of this moon. She had done a tremendous amount of geologic research on Europa and its active tectonic plates. Now she would do the same for Ganymede, yet another moon with tectonic plates, although not active.

  Bailey and Dimitri hopped around, collected samples, snapped pictures, and took readings using all the tools they brought along.

  Li watched their progress from the Seeker, occasionally breaking up the banter between Bailey and Dimitri. He had made his way back to the communication room and was floating in the main control room next to the monitors. There were a set of objectives that had been decided by scientists back on Earth so, from time to time, Li would tell Bailey and Dimitri what they needed to do and answer specific questions or address problems they might have.

  Even with the protection of their spacesuits and the natural protection of the moon they were on, it was still best to reduce the total time on the surface. So Bailey and Dimitri spent only an hour on the surface doing their research on each walk.

  Soon, the two astronauts returned to their ship. The Lander they returned to was simply that: a lander. It didn’t contain any extra equipment for major research or long-term survival. The moons around Jupiter were small enough that escaping their gravity didn’t require enormous amounts of fuel. This allowed the crew of the Europa Mission the opportunity to travel from Europa to Ganymede. By using Europa’s stockpile of hydrogen as a refueling station, in theory, they could visit as many of the moons of Jupiter as they wanted.